In 1839 some colored men from Sierra Leone, desirous of engaging in trade, purchased a small vessel, and called at Lagos and Badagry.  They had been slaves in this country, and had been taken to Sierra Leone, where they had received a Christian education.  Their visit, therefore, was attended with no ordinary interest.  They recognized many of their friends and kindred, and were agreeably surprised at the wonderful change that had taken place in so short a time.  They returned to Sierra Leone, only to inspire their neighbors with a zeal for commercial and missionary enterprise.  Within three years, five hundred of the best colored people of Sierra Leone set out for Lagos and Badagry on the seacoast, and then moved overland to Abeokuta, where they intended to make their home.  In this company of noble men were merchants, mechanics, physicians, school-teachers, and clergymen.  Their people had fought for deliverance from physical bondage:  these brave missionaries had come to deliver them from intellectual and spiritual bondage.  The people of Abeokuta gave the missionaries a hearty welcome.  The colony received new blood and energy.  School-buildings and churches rose on every hand.  Commerce was revived, and even agriculture received more skilful attention.  Peace and and plenty began to abound.  Every thing wore a sunny smile, and many tribes were bound together by the golden cords of civilization, and sang their Te Deum together.  Far-away England caught their songs of peace, and sent them agricultural implements, machinery, and Christian ministers and teachers.  So, that, nowhere on the continent of Africa is there to be found so many renewed households, so many reclaimed tribes, such substantial results of a vigorous, Christian civilization.

The forces that quickened the inhabitants of Abeokuta were not all objective, exoteric:  there were subjective and inherent forces at work in the hearts of the people.  They were capable of civilization,—­longed for it; and the first blaze of light from without aroused their slumbering forces, and showed them the broad and ascending road that led to the heights of freedom and usefulness.  That they sought this road with surprising alacrity, we have the most abundant evidence.  Nor did all the leaders come from abroad.  Adgai, in the Yoruba language, but Crowther, in English, was a native of this country.  In 1822 he was sold into slavery at the port of Badagry.  The vessel that was to bear him away to the “land of chains and stocks” was captured by a British man-of-war, and taken to Sierra Leone.  Here he came under the influence of Christian teachers.  He proved to be one of the best pupils in his school.  He received a classical education, fitted for the ministry, and then hastened back to his native country to carry the gospel of peace.  It is rather remarkable, but he found his mother and several sisters still “in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity.”  The son and brother became